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Tyrlian
General information Phonology Consonants ŋ is an allophone of n occurring before k and g. ð, z are allophones of /f, θ, s/ respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants. ç is an allophone of h before a back vowel ɫ is an allophone of l occurring before another consonant Vowels Alphabet Phonotactics Grammar Classification of Words Tyrlian grammarians have been classifying words of speech for centuries, but the modern standard is the one taught in public schools, chosen by the Tyrlian Board of Education in the year 3E31 (equivalent to the human year 1962). This is the 9Asc system, which divides words into nine categories called Asc. The Asc themselves grouped together according to the following chart. *Content words **Substantives ***Nouns ***Pronouns ***Number words **Verbs (broadly speaking) ***Action verbs ***Description verbs **Modifiers ***Determiners, prenouns or indeclinable adjectives ***Adverbs **Other content words ***Interjections or exclamations *Function words **Particles or postpositions Both cardinal and ordinal numbers are grouped into their own part of speech. Descriptive verbs and action verbs are classified separately despite sharing essentially the same conjugation. Verb endings constitute a large and rich class of morphemes, indicating such things in a sentence as tense, mood, aspect, speech level, and honorifics. Prefixes and suffixes are numerous, partly because Tyrlian is an agglutinative language. There are also various other important classes of words and morphemes that are not generally classified among the Asc. 5 other major classes of words or morphemes are: *Verb endings *Demonstratives *Conjunctions *Prefixes *Suffixes Postpositions Tyrlian postpositions are also known as case markers. Examples include é''', the topic marker, and '''sa, the direct object marker. Postpositions come after substantives and are used to indicate the role of a noun in a sentence or clause. Case Clitics Both nouns and pronouns take case clitics. Pronouns are somewhat irregular. As with many clitics and suffixes in Korean, for many case clitics different forms are used with nouns ending in consonants and nouns ending in vowels. The most extreme example of this is in the nominative (subject), where the historical clitic on is now restricted to appearing after consonants, and a completely unrelated (suppletive) form -'ne '''appears after vowels. 1. The stem '-oi is a morphophonemic spelling, which is pronounced the same as 'oa '''or '''ua. ' 2. The stem '-rum '''is also used when the attached noun ends with an '''r. ' Informational clitics Nouns Tyrlian nouns do not have grammatical gender and though they can be made plural by adding the suffix '''-an to the end of a word, in general the suffix is not used when the plurality of the noun is clear from context. For example, while the English sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Tyrlian sentence "Unbane kom sín hueo" (applesubject three things exists) keeps the word unba 'in its unmarked form, as the numeral makes the plural marker redundant. Pronouns Tyrlian pronouns are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal '''Kum '''and the honorific/humble '''born. '''In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. Numerals Tyrlian numerals include two regularly used sets: a native Tyrlian set and a Guaro-Tyrlian set. The Guaro-Tyrlian system is nearly entirely based on the Guarian numerals. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. The grouping of large numbers in Tyrlian follow the Guarian tradition of myriads (10,000) rather than thousands. Verbs Action Verbs Tyrlian "action verbs", which include '''assem '(to write) and 'gom '(to go), are usually called, simply, "verbs." However, they can also be called "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs," because they describe an action, process, or movement. This distinguishes them from descriptive verbs. Korean verb conjugation depends upon the tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subject(s), and the listener(s). Different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Tyrlian language and Tyrlian culture; the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper degree of respect or familiarity for the situation. Descriptive Verbs Descriptive verbs sometimes translated as "adjectives" but also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs," are verbs such as 'akkaom '(to be pretty) or 'thestrom '(to be red), English does not have an identical grammatical category, and the English translation of a Tyrlian descriptive verb is usually a linking verb + an English adjective. However, some Tyrlian words which do not match that formula, such as 'bekkum, '''a transitive verb which means to "to lack" or "to want for", are still considered descriptive verbs in Tyrlian because they don't involve an action. Copulative and existential verbs The copula clitic '-onem 'may be historically related to the nominative case clitic '-on. 'Regardless, nouns do not take the case clitic '-ne when followed by the copula. The copula inflects like any verb, except that it has a special honorific form. The copula takes the negative prefix '-ser, '''but the result is written as if it were a single morpheme: '''seron'. Nouns do take the nominative clitic '-on/-ne '''before the negative copula. The copula is only for "to be" in the sense of "A is B". For existence, Tyrlian uses the existential verbs '''huem '"to be, to exist" and bollem '"to not be, to not exist." The honorific existential verb for '''huem '''is '''guesom. ' Modifiers Determiners Tyrlian determiners are known in English as "determiners," "determinatives," "pre-nouns," "adnouns," "attributives," "unconjugated adjectives," and "indeclinable adjectives." Determiners come before and modify or specify nouns, much like attributive adjectives or articles in English. Examples include 'bak '(each). Adverbs Tyrlian adverbs include 'scom '(also, again) and 'bié '(fully). Like in English, adverbs modify verbs. Verb Conjugation Tyrlian verb conjugation can be shocking for first time learners, but it actually follows a strict system. Most verbs have regular conjugations and once you learn the rules for these conjugations, you can conjugate most verbs. There are still a few verbs that remain irregular. For this example we will use the following verb: 'huem. ' '''Sentence-final forms Connective Forms Noun and determiner forms Vocabulary Example text Category:Languages